


Buried

by JJ1564



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bondage, Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Sam Winchester, Buried Alive, Caring Castiel (Supernatural), Caring Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hell Trauma, Hurt Dean Winchester, Kidnapped Dean Winchester, Light BDSM, M/M, Needy Dean Winchester, Nightmares, Possessive Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJ1564/pseuds/JJ1564
Summary: Dean is captured by evil Doc Benton from S3’s ‘Time is On My Side’ and buried alive in revenge for what he did to the Doc. In the darkness and silence, Dean thinks about his relationship with Sam. Dean fights to hold onto his sanity, and experiences all the agony of dehydration and starvation, but he can’t die as he bears the Mark of Cain. Sam and Cas eventually rescue him and help him recover from his ordeal.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 140





	Buried

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for a challenge so long ago that it was before Dean was buried in the Ma'lek box in his nightmares! I almost abandoned it but decided to read through and, as it's not completely awful, to post it! Thanks so much to jdl71 for her beta work and for encouraging me to carry on with the story.

“Wake up, Dean. Do you remember me?”

Dean opened his eyes to see a grotesque face staring down at him, covered by patchwork skin with tufts of hair sticking up from his head. Dean remembered Doc Benton only too well; unfortunately, his mask of composure didn’t work this time.

“I see that you do,” Doc nodded, “and you remember what you did to me.”

“I’m sure you’re not gonna bear a grudge.” Dean replied, covering his fear with bravado.

“You buried me alive.” Doc leaned in, glaring at him.

“Yeah, ‘bout that, how the hell did you bust out?” Dean asked. He struggled at the bonds holding him down but even with the extra strength the Mark gave him, he couldn’t move.

“I know you’re stalling for time, Dean. Thinking your kid brother will save you.” Doc replied. “But Sammy’s a little...tied up right now. And I’m gonna get my hands on his pretty peepers this time.”

“Listen to me, you son-of-a-bitch. I’m gonna cut you into pieces then feed you through a meat grinder,” Dean threatened, although he knew they were just empty words right now, “then throw you into the ocean to let the fish feed on you.”

“Very imaginative,” Doc shrugged, “but you won’t be able to do any of that. Not from six feet under.”

“I’ll get out. If you managed it, so will I.” Dean vowed.

“Ah, but I’m immortal,” Doc smiled, the stitches on either side of his mouth pulling unpleasantly.

Dean tried not to show any reaction to what he’d said – it really wouldn’t do for Doc to know Dean was immortal, too. Doc pulled over a chair and sat down. “And it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I was down there for months, wasting away, shut up in the dark. The concrete you so kindly poured on top of me flattened the refrigerator, so by the time they dug me out I was squashed like a bug. The construction workers thought I was dead; but of course, I was still alive.”

“How did they find you?” Dean had to ask.

“They were laying pipes for a new housing development. Hit my concrete tomb and broke me out. I gave the pathologist a surprise when I sat up, I can tell you.” Doc smiled his repulsive smile again. “He looked so shocked, I thought he was going to have heart failure. So, I took his lungs and liver; I didn’t want a weak heart.”

“You sick fucker.” Dean growled. “You’re the one who’s been killing people in this town for their organs and their skin?”

“Yes. It’s easier to just kill them,” Doc shrugged, “I tried taking what I needed before and letting them live, but you know how that ended for me.”

“But how are you alive? Sam said it was science, not magic...”

“Ah, your brother was half-right. It was mainly science, with a bit of magic thrown in.”

“Dammit.”

“Exactly. You never thought you’d see me again. I never thought I’d see you again.” Doc stared down at him. “So, imagine my surprise when I saw you staggering out of that bar in downtown Kansas City towards your car; luckily I always carry my chloroform.” Dean groaned; he never should’ve had that argument with Sammy – yet another one about ‘curing’ the Mark - and gone off to drink alone. Doc chuckled then continued. “You know, I was tempted to take your eyes, such a wonderful green, but I want you to see the inside of your coffin. Well, all you’ll see is blackness, but you get the idea.”

“I don’t give a shit about what happens to me, just let my brother go.”

“You might say that now, Dean. But after a day in the darkness and silence, you’ll wish for light, for sound, for air on your face. After a week, you’ll wish for death,” Doc leaned forward and whispered, “after a month you’ll start to lose your mind.”

“I won’t last that long. I’ll die in a matter of days.” Dean bluffed.

“Not with this on your arm.” Doc grabbed Dean’s wrist and shook his arm.

“That’s just a tattoo, it’s nothing...”

“Now now, Dean, we both know it’s the Mark of Cain. You can’t die!” Doc laughed maniacally. “I thought of keeping you, my own everlasting body part factory. But it’s too risky, you might escape. And burying you alive forever just seems like poetic justice, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re a sick bastard.”

“And all the time, you’ll be wondering how Sam’s doing without his pretty peepers. Or if I still have him, using his long body as a skin bank...”

“Don’t you fucking lay a finger on him!” Dean yelled, pulling as hard as he could against the leather straps around his wrists, knees, head and ankles. He was too weak to move them even a little.

“You can’t get away, I dosed you with enough tranquilizers to fell an elephant. Now, as lovely as chatting with you has been, I have a grave to fill.”

Dean screamed and cursed until he was hoarse, but Doc just laughed as he wheeled Dean through to another room, then used a pulley system to lift the table top he was strapped to and deposited him right into an open coffin. He struggled more ferociously, and Doc stabbed a needle into his neck.

“Now, that will stop all your pointless struggles, but won’t knock you out.” Doc explained. “We don’t want you sleeping through the best part, do we? When the coffin lid is nailed down, and you’re lowered into the ground. Oh, and you should know, we’re underneath an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. No one around for miles. No one to hear you scream - except me.”

“I’m gonna bust out, and I’m gonna...”

Doc just laughed and pulled the coffin lid over Dean’s body. He left Dean’s head exposed, gazing down at him with glee. “Oh Dean, you can’t imagine how wonderful this is for me. It’s what I dreamed of while I was in my own tomb. I never thought this day would come!”

“You are such a fucking sicko,” Dean hissed.

“As are you. You buried me alive, sicko,” Doc whispered ominously, “now it’s my turn.”

The coffin lid slammed shut and Doc started to hammer nails into it. Dean screamed, cried and cursed, but he knew it was pointless. Once the hammering stopped, he was left with just the sound of his heart thudding.

He shouted for help, but it was useless. He felt the coffin move again and then heard the familiar sound of earth hitting the lid. However, this was the first time he’d heard it from inside a coffin and he started laughing at the thought. Perhaps he was getting hysterical. He took some deep calming breaths. He wouldn’t give Doc the satisfaction of hearing him scream any more. He bore the Mark of Cain; he could get out. It might take time, but he could do it. And Sam... well, he was convinced Doc was lying about capturing Sam. He really hoped he was right, and Sam wasn’t in Doc’s clutches.

Dean was pretty sure that the crazy old coot would’ve shown Dean that he had Sam before he entombed him. And he had to believe that Sam was going to find him. He was. He wasn’t going to give up on him like he had before and shack up with some fucking vet. The apple pie life didn’t suit either of them.

Everything came back to Sam. Dean had died to save him and had watched Sam jump into the pit to save the world. Dean had fought his way through Purgatory to get back to him and had taken the Mark of Cain because of him.

He remembered Sam asking if he’d had to kill the bastards who’d been using and possibly abusing Claire. Truth was, he hadn’t; he could’ve wounded them, but the Mark craved blood and death. Sam tied Dean up that night and fucked him long and hard. Sam would never hurt him intentionally – apart from the few fights they’d had over the years – but sometimes they both needed it. And since Dean had taken on the Mark, they needed it more than ever. Dean would start off demanding that Sam bite him, hit him, make him bleed, but it soon turned to pleading.

Sam’s eyes would darken as Dean moaned and begged, and he would growl, “So pretty, Dean, so fucking pretty”. Sam would leave marks on his skin that were much more important than the Mark of Cain. Giving his control to Sam was the only time he felt free of the Mark. He was Dean again, needing Sam inside him, needing Sam to claim him. He thought of Sam with him, inside him, until he fell asleep.

Dean had trouble adjusting to the complete darkness. Opening his eyes was a real mind fuck. Closing them didn’t really help. He fell into a fitful sleep thanks to the tranquilizers the Doc had doped him up with. He woke up and tried not to panic as the darkness and silence overwhelmed him. He sang some songs to keep his mind occupied, recited some of his favorite movie lines and ‘watched’ scenes from movies inside his head.

He had no idea how much time had passed. The Mark made him immortal, but it didn’t stop his thirst or hunger. His throat was dry from lack of water and all his fruitless screaming. His stomach ached, and he felt nauseous and ravenous in equal measure. He wondered if his organs would shut down eventually from lack of water, and he’d just exist in pain and delirium forever or until he was rescued. And then what? Could Cas heal him? Or would his body just keep regenerating like Dr Who's did?

He slept on and off. He knew dehydration and starvation would make him tired. He tried to get his hands free, but he was too weak. He sang, and he screamed, and the pain in his dry throat grew, but he couldn’t stand the silence. So he spent a lot of time talking to Sam, telling him things he never had before.

“’Y’know, Sammy, sometimes I’d ‘borrow’ a piece of shit car and drive around Stanford, just to keep an eye on you. Gotta say, it hurt when I saw you smiling and laughing with your friends, but I knew I’d be a grade-A asshole if I didn’t want my kid brother to be happy. I almost parked and walked over to you one evening, when you were pacing up and down the sidewalk outside a shady-looking bar. You looked anxious, like you were worried, perhaps you’d picked up a hunt...” Dean sighed at the memory. “Then I saw this beautiful blonde girl approach, smiling at you. She was tall, about my height, and only had to tiptoe a little to peck a kiss on your cheek. I felt like a voyeur, but I couldn’t look away. You held hands as you walked past the shady bar towards an Italian restaurant. I realized you’d waited there so that she didn’t have to walk past the bar alone – always the gentleman, Sammy. That was the first time I saw Jess, not that I’d ever let on to you that I’d been stalking you.”

Sam had been the center of Dean’s life even before the fire, even before the moment their Dad had placed Sam in his arms and into his care. Sam became the center of his life from the moment he’d wrapped his pudgy hand around Dean’s finger and smiled up at him. It was one of Dean’s earliest memories, and something he often thought about when life was fucking awful. Did all older brothers feel that instant connection, that intrinsic need to protect, that need to make their younger sibling happy? Or was that moment magnified for him by all that happened afterwards?

He also spent a lot of time begging for Sam to save him. “Sammy, it’s so dark...let me out let me out let me out! Somebody help me, please, I can’t…” Dean would sometimes wipe his eyes angrily and tell himself to... “Hold it together, Dean. Sing something...Back in black...ugh, no wrong choice. Johnny used to work on the docks...”  
.  
Singing helped for a while. Sometimes he fell into a restless sleep and woke up to his endless nightmare. He’d been to hell, he’d been to purgatory, he could do this. But the darkness, the silence, the solitude was all weighing on him, heavier than the soil laying on top of the coffin.

So, he thought about Sam, from that earliest memory onwards. Sammy learning to walk on a sleazy motel room floor, Sammy’s first word - “Dee” - which Dad had jokingly said was for Dad, although they both knew it was for Dean. Sammy learning to read in the back of the Impala. They both loved Cat in the Hat but Sammy’s favorite was Green Eggs and Ham, of course. I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am. Sometimes Dad would join in, making Sam giggle, especially when he got the words wrong.

Yeah, Dad hadn’t been all rainbows and cupcakes when they were kids, but they’d had fun times, as well as the long hours spent on the road, all the times left alone for a day or so in dingy motels, or for a week or two with strangers. Dad used to sing to them sometimes, sad songs that sounded like lullabies. He used to make them do press ups and sit ups until they cried. He used to tickle them, make them laugh. He used to make them run miles with packs on their small backs. Dean knew he’d done it all with the best intention – to keep them safe – but he wished the happy memories of his Dad outweighed the harsh ones.

Sam was a string bean of a kid, small and wiry, but he had such strength and stubbornness that Dean admired so much. Although that stubbornness often got him into big trouble with their Dad.

And of course, if Sam was in trouble, so was Dean.

“Why do we need to leave? I like my school, an’ it doesn’t smell funny here. I wanna stay.”  
“Sam, you will do as you are told.”  
“Why?”  
“Because I’m your father, and I know what is best for you.”  
“Going to school is best for me, an’ for Dean.”  
Dad had looked about ready to hit Sam, so Dean stepped between them.  
“C’mon, Sammy, we can play Top Trumps in the car, I got the new Star Wars set.”  
Sam looked torn; he wanted to argue the point, but he sure loved Star Wars.  
“You should have got him ready to leave, Dean. You know I rely on you for helping with your brother.”  
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.” Dean ignored the way Sam looked at him.  
“It’s my fault, Dean told me to get ready and I didn’t. It’s not Dean’s fault.”  
“That’s enough. Just get your stuff and get in the god-damned car.”

And Dean remembered the first time they had kissed. It was after Sam had told him he was going to Stanford, and they’d both been upset. Heated words soon turned into a fight, during which they’d grabbed each other’s shirts and were so close their noses almost touched. He never knew who made the first move, it just seemed that their lips joined of their own accord. Dean blamed himself, of course he did. He was the big brother, the one who should be looking after Sam, not kissing him.

They argued again, Sam insisting that he’d wanted to kiss Dean, and that he hadn’t forced him. Then they kissed again, their arms awkwardly encircling each other. It was a desperate kiss and hug, as they were running out of time. And Dean had to decide if he was going to disobey their Dad by going with Sam to Stanford or disappoint Sam by staying with Dad. He always regretted the decision he made to stay with Dad. If he’d gone to Stanford perhaps Jessica would be alive. Perhaps he and Sam would’ve realized that Brady was possessed, or that Sam was on a demon’s radar.

‘If only’ and ‘perhaps’ were the worst fucking words in the English language. Nothing good ever came from dwelling on past mistakes. Dean had to think of the future. He had to have one that was outside of this box. He knew the oxygen was critically low, as he was light-headed most of the time and breathing was difficult. He wondered what would happen to his body now. 

“Kiss me,” Sam demanded, and he was helpless to deny him. He’d never been able to deny Sam much of anything, from Lucky Charms to blow jobs. He smiled at the thought. “I said kiss me.” Sam repeated, scowling at him. Possessive, controlling, powerful Sam was his favorite flavor. 

“Sorry, was just thinkin’…”

‘“Less thinkin’ more kissin’,” Sam replied with a hint of a smile on his lips.

They were in a huge corn field in Iowa, with not a sign of human life around for miles. They’d put a blanket on the cracked earth next to the Impala and had stripped off down to their boxers. Sam loved to have sex ‘in the wild’ although Dean wasn’t such a fan. Kissing led to Sam nibbling his way down his chest and stomach, then licking his dick until he was breathless and bucking his hips. Sam teased him by kissing and nibbling at his straining dick until he almost came, but just before he did, Sam enveloped his dick in his sweet lips and swallowed him down. 

Dean was pleased he was already lying down, as he knew his legs would’ve given out otherwise. Sam had such a fucking talented mouth – or a mouth talented at fucking. He laughed at his own stupid thought and Sam pulled off to smile down at him.

“What’s so funny?” 

“Jus’ thought about you having a fucking talented mouth - or a mouth talented at fucking!”

“Thanks, but there’s another part of my anatomy that’s even more talented,” Sam smirked.

“Oh yeah, your fingers are amazing,” Dean teased.

“I’m pleased you think so,” Sam grinned as he pushed Dean’s legs up and ran his fingertips around his hole. 

“Mmm, mmm, so amazing,” he moaned in appreciation, then gasped as one entered his hole.

Sam opened him up quickly, and he didn’t mind at all because he could see how hard Sam was already.

“Ready?” Sam asked as he lined his big hard dick up against his hole.

“Hell yeah, hit me with all your talent!” he grinned and Sam laughed. 

“You are one crazy son-of-a-bitch,”

“Has been said,” Dean agreed.

Neither of them could speak once Sam started thrusting inside him, except for the occasional ‘fuck’ or ‘yeah’ or grunt. He had been slightly pushed off the blanket and his arm had been grazed by the hard earth and corn stalks. Every time he touched it in the following days, he smiled at the memory of his talented brother making love to him. 

Dean smiled now at that memory, one of his best. He knew he was lucky to have so many good memories, although he knew the bad ones were queuing up to outweigh them, and he couldn’t let that happen. He had to remember the good. He had to keep his mind active. He couldn’t give in to the terror of being buried alive, and he couldn’t give in to the terrors of his past.

But sometimes his mind wouldn’t cooperate, and he had flashbacks of some of his worst moments. Alastair slicing into his flesh, Sam dying in his arms, Cas walking into the lake, Dad telling him he’d have to kill Sam, Dick-fucking-Roman shooting Bobby, the hellhounds ripping into him, Sam leaving for Stanford, Jo and Ellen sacrificing themselves, having to kill Benny…

So much blood, so much sorrow, so much horror, so much loss.

Sometimes he wished he could die, with Sam his last thought, and Sam the last name on his lips. No more pain, no more darkness. But he couldn’t die, partly because of the Mark on his arm, but also because Sam was waiting for him, looking for him, worrying about him.

He’d managed to get his wrists out of the straps, and tried to scratch against the coffin lid, but all he achieved was gaining splinters in his bloodied fingertips, and broken nails. He was so frustrated – he bore the Mark, so why couldn’t he get out of this fucking box? He fell asleep crying, so afraid that this would be his existence forever and that he’d never see Sam again.

Dean had imagined being rescued so many times that when it happened, he didn’t really believe it until he saw Sam’s face. Sam looked so scared and worried as he yelled “Dean, Dean, I’m here.”

And Sam’s beautiful eyes were wet with tears. Doc had been bluffing; he hadn’t got his filthy hands on Sam’s amazing multi-colored ‘peepers’.

“S’mee,” Dean rasped, hardly able to form a word as his mouth was so dry.

“Oh God, oh my God,” Sam pulled at the rotting wood with his bare hands, but another pair of hands pulled him away and the coffin lid was quickly removed.

“I can’t believe it, Cas, he’s alive, he’s alive,” Sam was sobbing.

Dean wanted to reach up and stroke Sam’s hair, but he was so tired. He drifted into darkness with Sam and Castiel’s worried faces looking at him.

When he woke again, he was in a bed, in a motel room, not in a wooden box. He was relieved it wasn’t a hospital room, as God knows how they’d explain his condition. Dean knew he had lost a lot of weight by the way his threadbare clothes hung loose on his frame, and by the way he’d managed to get his thin wrists out of the straps.

“Hey, Dean.” Sam smiled down at him. “Um, Cas has healed the damage to your organs caused by dehydration and starvation, but you’re really underweight and you’re gonna be exhausted for a while. Do you want me to shave you, cut your hair?”

Dean lifted a shaking hand to touch his beard. It was long and straggly; it felt foreign on his face. He lifted it a little higher and caught sight of his hand – it looked like a skeleton. “Fuck,” he whispered, shocked.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it.” Sam reassured him. “You’ll soon be back to normal; you just need a few burgers and apple pies.”

“Yeah,” Dean tried to speak but his throat felt red raw. Sam helped him to sit up a little and handed him a bottle of water. Dean tried to hold it, but his hand shook too much. “S’rry.”

“It’s okay,” Sam popped a straw into the bottle and held it so that Dean could drink. Trust Sam to think of everything. Dean attempted a smile that was more like a grimace. “You alright? Stupid question I know, you must be so...overwhelmed. Tired, thirsty, hungry.”

Dean grabbed hold of Sam’s wrist and whispered “M’happy,” before he fell asleep.

The next few days were a blur. He remembered Sam shaving him and cutting his too-long hair.

“Never expected you to have hair longer than mine, Dean.” Sam had teased.

When he became more lucid, he realized it wasn’t a motel room, but a regular bedroom in a regular house. Sam explained that as he knew Dean would need some time to recover, he’d rented a small house. It was a good move on Sam’s part, as there was a small backyard and a porch that Dean could sit out on.

Dean felt so tired, so hollow and so old. He knew Sam was worried about him, as it had been over a week since they’d rescued him, yet it took too much energy for him to say much more than one word, or to focus on the TV, or read a book. He felt like it took too much energy to even smile, and he wanted to, so much. He wanted to smile at Sam and see him smile back. He wanted to run his fingers through Sam’s hair, kiss his lips, feel his body against his own.

“Hey, it’s still early days.” Sam told him one day when he’d taken him out to sit on the porch. He had a blanket over his skinny knees and sunglasses on, although it was cloudy. Dean had started to cry, fat, useless tears that sneaked out from under the sunglasses and ran down his gaunt face. Sam had sat close to him and gently hugged him, wiping his tears away with his fingertips.

By the end of the second week, he still wasn’t speaking, was barely eating, slept most of the time and had to be helped around the house like an invalid. He was beginning to think this was it. This was his life now and he would never recover his strength. He heard Sam talking to Cas, expressing the similar concerns.

“He’s not eating, Cas, he’s like a living skeleton.” Sam sighed. “I’m afraid to touch him in case I break a bone. He’s still sleeping most of the time. I don’t have a fucking clue as to what to do, how to help him.”

“Sam, he was buried alive for nine weeks. It’s bound to have a profound effect on him. I am surprised that he is sane after such a long time alone in the dark and silence.”

Dean guessed sleeping and crying more than he ever had were indicators of the profound effect, but he couldn’t speak about it. Sam had tried to get him to ‘open up’ but he had to keep It all shut away. All the horror, the fear, the fucking boredom, the thoughts, the nightmares, the dreams. Nine weeks. It felt like nine years. 

At the beginning of the fourth week, Sam arranged for Jody to visit. Before she could school her expression, her face showed her distress at seeing Dean so changed. “Dean, it’s so good to see you,” she kissed his cheek and wiped her eyes, “I was so sorry to hear what happened to you.”

“Thanks,” Dean concentrated hard so that he could smile. He’d practiced in the mirror, and it still looked more like a grimace. He was happy to be saved, happy to be with Sam, so why couldn’t he show it? Why couldn’t he smile, laugh, enjoy life, eat, walk, talk, just do something other than sleep or cry?

“I brought you my special apple and cinnamon pie, I know how much you love it.” Jody smiled.

“That’s great, I’ll make some coffee and we can all have a piece.” Sam answered for him.

“Mine,” Dean joked, holding his hands out in a ‘gimmee’ gesture and he was pleased that Sam and Jody laughed.

Once Sam had gone, Jody sat next to Dean and held his hand. “God, Dean, that must have been such an awful experience. How are you holding up?”

“M’good,” Dean lied.

“No one would blame you if you weren’t." Jody replied. "You don’t need to put on a brave face.”

“Huh, not brave,” Dean huffed, wiping at the tears in his eyes with his free hand.

“You’re human, Dean, not a superhero. You’ve been through a trauma and you’re healing. Give it time.” Jodie squeezed his hand and Dean stared at his arm, where the Mark lurked underneath his sleeve. Jody noticed, of course. “I guess that thing’s been a blessing as well as a curse.”

Dean managed a shaky laugh. “Damn straight.”

Sam returned with coffees and plates for the pie. Dean ate two mouthfuls but that was all it took to fill up his stomach. He sipped his coffee and listened to Sam and Jody catching up with their news.

Jody was pleased to hear they’d caught Doc Benton and Sam had made sure he was truly gone this time – there was no coming back from a vat of acid. Dean shivered as he imagined Doc’s molecules all joining together like T-1000’s in Terminator 2, forming his body again. Doc-1000. It made him feel so sick he excused himself and threw up the apple pie into the toilet.

Jody was staying overnight, so Dean didn’t feel too bad about going to bed so early. He was exhausted, again. And he knew he’d have his usual quota of nightmares when he slept.

The next day, over another lunch that he barely touched, Jody asked Sam how they’d found Dean, and he realized that he didn’t know, but how could he not know? Sam and Cas had talked to him when they’d first found him, and he couldn’t recall what they’d said. They’d probably told him then…

“Earth to Dean,” Sam’s voice cut into his thoughts, “you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah…I just can’t, um, can’t remember,” he managed to reply.

“In that case, I charged in on a white steed and pierced evil Doc Benton with my lance…” Sam grinned.

“That is not what happened,” Cas interjected, and Dean so wanted to laugh at Cas being so Cas, but he couldn’t. Even hearing the name of his tormentor made him feel sick.

“Really?” Jody raised an eyebrow and Sam laughed, but he stopped when he saw Dean’s expression.

“Dean, are you alright? Do you wanna go lay down?” Sam asked, concerned. 

“No…no…I wanna hear,” he nodded his head to add emphasis and felt woozy. Cas reached out and touched his arm, making him feel a little calmer and less nauseous. “Thanks Cas. I’m okay, Sammy.”

“Well, we’d tried everything from location spells to dream-walking. Cas tried reaching you through the bond you share,” Sam tried not to sound bitter as he said those last words – he’d always been a little jealous of the bond between Cas and Dean, “but nothing was working. So, we went to the last place we knew you were from your cell’s GPS, some dive bar in Kansas City, and worked outwards from there, checking every derelict building, anywhere we thought someone might be holding you.”

“How did you know he was alive?” Jody asked, then slapped Sam’s arm, “and why didn’t you ask for my help?”

“Sorry, Jody, we thought we had it handled, we never thought it’d take so long,” Sam replied, then took Dean’s still bony hand, adding, “I’m so sorry it took us so long.”

“S’okay,” Dean whispered, squeezing Sam’s hand as much as he could.

“To answer your first question, Dean could not die because of the Mark,” Cas explained, “and I would have felt the loss had he died.”

“When we found the farmhouse, Doc was skinning some poor bastard, humming a tune as he did so,” Sam shuddered. “I chopped his head off, and Cas managed to heal his victim, although he probably needs major counselling now. We still had no clue where you were, Dean.”

“I noticed the floor in the farmhouse kitchen was newly laid, and then I could hear ‘Highway to Hell’ being sung very weakly.” Cas picked up the story. “Sam and I dug down to the coffin, and there you were…” Cas’s blue eyes shone with emotion, “the coffin had been etched with various occult symbols to make tracking you impossible.”

“But you did it, you found him,” Jody smiled at them all, and noticed Dean was crying silently. “Dean, honey, it’s okay, you’re safe. You’re gonna be just fine.”

Dean shook his head, glaring at Sam, “No…no…you said…vat of acid.”

“Once we’d got you out of there, Cas returned for his body and threw him into a vat of acid on a local industrial estate.”

“Well that sounds thorough,” Jody retorted.

“I also chopped his limbs from his body. To be on the safe side.” Cas deadpanned and they all laughed, except Dean, who excused himself to throw up in the bathroom and then staggered to his bed. Sam found him there shortly afterwards and held him in his strong arms while he cried himself to sleep.

Over the weeks that dragged into months, Cas tried several times to heal Dean. He explained to both of them that healing emotional trauma was much more difficult than healing physical injuries and they were all beginning to think that there was nothing he could do to help. Then, halfway through the third month after Dean’s rescue, Cas sought advice from another angel and was given a cure for ‘sickness of the soul’; they had no expectations, but they decided to try.

Castiel held his head gently but firmly as he recited the Enochian words of the cure, and Dean felt peace wash over him. He no longer felt afraid, or useless, or exhausted. He slept that night without any nightmares and woke up in the morning feeling rested and, for the first time in weeks, hungry. Sam looked so surprised to see him up and cooking pancakes that Dean laughed, a real laugh.

“Cas’s mojo worked, then?” Sam grinned.

“Looks like it, Sammy!” He replied. “Sorry I’ve been so...” he waved his hand around, hopefully indicating everything that had been wrong since he was rescued.

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for. I’m just pleased to have you back, really back.” Tears welled up in Sam's eyes.

“Sammy, you’re probably expectin’ me to say no chick flick moments, but what I really want is a hug. And don’t worry, I won’t break.” He opened his arms and wrapped his not-so-little brother in them. Sam leaned against him, winding his long arms around Dean and sobbing into his neck.

“Missed you so much,” Sam sobbed.

“I missed you, too, Sammy.” He sobbed back in reply, as he stroked Sam’s hair.

Dean knew he had a lot more healing to do, and it would take time for his body to recover. He also knew he had to get rid of it somehow, but right now holding Sammy in his arms, he was grateful for the Mark.


End file.
